How London thieves exploit organisational silos

>> it's that the UK has decided it would rather have some petty crime than to pay the taxes necessary to catch petty criminals

No such "active" decision has ever been taken by the UK citizens and simply never would be by any democracy I can imagine - and this is probably the next major problem democracy needs to solve.

Did you know the UK is self sufficient in strawberries? Supermarkets saw they had demand, and put strawberries on shelves from global suppliers year round, then started competing amoungst themselves on price which meant air freighted strawberries cost more than locally produced greenhoused food so we expanded our greenhouses - in a good stuff it's likely noone would vote for

I don't know quite how to solve this but I think a "backlog" approach to democracy would work

The only thing this thief exploited is the idiocy of the victim, who carried around a backpack full of expensive items, his passport (leave it at home or in the hotel), and his wallet (put it in your pocket), and then left it piled in the corner. Of a bar.

We should all be glad that the police don't waste their time on petty crime like this. This guy didn't deserve this, but the rest of us shouldn't have to pay for his naivety.

> The Met simply have limited funding [...]

Everyone has limited funding

> and more important matters to investigate

Everyone should prioritise what they work on!

Not to be harsh on the OP, but let's compared the total £value of what was stolen vs the potential [opportunity] cost to the police and other relevant authorities which would be required to catch and convict the thief.

If the laptop had something the authorities valued, they'd work significantly harder.

Not in any way victim blaming but there is zero requirement to carry ID in the UK (except if you are young and want to get served for alcohol).

They tried to introduce national ID cards a few times and it got voted down each time.

FWIW I have no issue with a national ID card if it's purely that, Identification but the government couldn't leave it at that and wanted to tie the card to everything.

Turning a reasonable idea into a terrible idea.

Given the way they expand everything to compromise peoples privacy I don't trust them not to do it after the fact either so generally I'm on the no to national ID side.

Because I don't trust my government at all.

This was a smart but unsavvy approach to solving the problem. A better one would have been to appeal to people's better natures.

I think it can generally be said that bureaucracies mostly exist to serve other bureaucracies, mere mortals are illegible drains on their resources, to put it candidly, if they helped every sad sack with a sad story that showed up at their doorstep, pretty soon that's going to be all they're doing.

So instead you have to persuade, cajole people into helping you out. You find the one guy with both the spare time and the wherewithal to work the system. Spin a detective story out of it, make it interesting for them. Never lose sight of the fact that they're doing you a favor and send a nice thank-you card after its sorted.

Sure, political forces have driven wedges between institutions that should be public-facing and the public they should be serving. But that doesn't mean that good people don't still work there. You just have to get them interested. Anyone you speak to can be cajoled into doing the right thing. But they won't unless you help them see the light.